Equipment Replacement Plan

Equipment Replacement Plan

Introduction

The East Central ISD will strive to maintain a cycle of upgrading, migrating, salvaging, donating, and/or replacing computer & technologies every 3 years for administrative staff, computer labs and 5 years for classroom equipment. Since few or no locations are on a formal replacement plan, it has resulted in a wide variance in the capabilities of computers in each school, office, or campus. This create a time-consuming ordering process, questionable replacement decisions, and a cascading “hand me down” effect.

To address these issues, most computers, network printers and projection systems on each campus have been placed on a replacement cycle. One third of all district technology resources are on a single cycle for replacement, upgrade, and/or migration. All resources are scheduled on a staggered 3-year cycle. These resources will be “aged” and tracked by EC Technology Operations BluePrint site (http://tinyurl.com/ecisdblueprint).

Goals

The goals of the technology replacement plan are to:

1. Assure that adequate computing resources are available in facilities, classrooms, and offices to support the EC Way;
2. Assure that each faculty and staff member who uses computing resources in his or her position has device(s) of sufficient capability to fulfill his/her responsibilities and necessary training;
3. Implement minimum standards for computing equipment repair and replacement on campus and promote uniformity of technology levels within each area;
4. Ease resource and financial planning by reducing the effort involved in departmental budgeting and planning for new computers. Eliminate the need to request capital equipment reviews, write requisitions, and request installations.
5. Provide for the cost effective and timely purchasing and installation of new equipment while decreasing the deployment time for new equipment; and
6. Expedite the disposal of old equipment.

Administrative Offices:

All business, campus, and administrative offices will maintain a three- year cycle. They will plan for this cycle in their budget. The district technology department will place all computers, hardware, and software on a rotating and staggered 3-year cycle. This cycle will be maintained in the inventory database.

The basic ECISD Asset Management Program consists of an inventory tracking system, which includes at a minimum:

• Physical Asset Information: configurations, software versions and licenses, and serial numbers
• Financial Asset Information: cost, depreciation, fund source, and capital asset values
• Service Contract and Warranty Information: warranty duration and levels, service providers, and service contract entitlements

Equipment disposal

Equipment disposal strategies for the ECISD includes auctioning off equipment to bidders who have use for such equipment, donations to charitable organizations, and salvaging materials content. Equipment is taken off the schools inventory per District policy.

Equipment life cycle planning

When planning for equipment acquisitions and disposal it is important to understand the concept of Equipment Life-Cycle Planning (ELP). ELP is the management practice of defining the business, technical, or financial criteria that will cause an organization to replace a piece of IT equipment. Examples of each criterion are as follows:

• Business: reliability or performance make it uneconomical
• Technical: will not run software in environment, etc.
• Financial: operating expenses exceed cost of replacement

Exceptions to Administrative Areas Replacement Process

In some situations, users may be required to run special software or perform unique tasks as part of their assigned job duties, and may need a computer with more memory, a faster processor, or a larger hard disk than the one they currently are using. Users in this situation may request that their workstation to be evaluated to determine an appropriate upgrade path. The EC Technology Operations may recommend revised specification (e.g. RAM, hard drive size) or possibly, a newer workstation.

While it is expected that the majority of the requests will come at the beginning of the fiscal year, requests will be reviewed throughout the year to handle unforeseen changes in job duties, etc.

Teacher Technology Replacement Process

This process address teacher workstations in traditional classrooms, and includes computer workstations, digital projectors, and network printers. The process calls for replacement of desktop computers every five years. Through additional professional development, teachers may qualify for more equipment expenditures.

Teachers are encouraged to save their data in GoogleDrive so that they can access it regardless of devices they are able to use and/or access. This will also minimize issues when their equipment is upgraded.

Computer Lab Technology Replacement Process

The Computer Lab Technology Replacement Process cover student and instructor workstations in computer labs and libraries. The process covers workstations, network printers, and projectors. The replacement process for computer workstations is every 5 years after initial purchase. Computer labs must be uniform across the District to ensure a consistent experience for students and staff relevant to state intervention and assessments. For that reason, Windows desktop computers are recommended until such a time that state interventions and assessments are no longer dependent on any one operating system.

A timeline has been setup.

Timeline

Funding available per year: $500,000

Please refer to chart for more information not included here.

Gartner Group developed the key elements of an equipment life cycle plan as illustrated below:

Key Elements of an Equipment Life-Cycle Plan

In order to make a thorough decision of whether a piece of equipment is obsolete, each of the key areas and its associated costs described below should be considered during the equipment life-cycle planning phase:

• Programming and Technical Skill Sets: costs to acquire staff with specialized programming and technical skill sets for current equipment exceeds the cost to replace existing equipment
• Software Licensing Costs: costs to license outdated software exceed the cost to replace existing equipment
• Performance Levels: performance levels of existing equipment are outdated and the costs to upgrade equipment exceed the cost to replace existing equipment
• Technical Functionality: Technical functionality of existing equipment is not as robust as new technology and costs to upgrade exceed the cost to replace existing equipment
• Environmental: Environmental risks and penalty costs outweigh the benefits and costs derived from the existing equipment.
• Maintenance Cost: Maintenance expenses exceed the cost to replace existing equipment
• Acquisition Cost: Operating expenses exceed the original acquisition cost of the existing equipment.
• Consumables: Supplies expenses exceed the cost to replace existing equipment.

For additional resources and information about disposing of obsolete equipment:

• Access the Global Recycling Network’s World Wide Web page at http://www.grn.com
• Access EPA guidelines governing the disposal of hazardous waste; see the Code of Federal Regulations — 40 CFR Parts 148, 261, 268, and 271 at http://www.epa.gov/epahome

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Appendix A -

Transfer of Obsolete Computer Equipment to Students with Educational Needs

(also known as Tech4Hornets - http://tinyurl.com/tech4hornets)